|
 The Summer Blockbuster Movie Season begins!
The results are in, and to no one's surprise, Iron Man 2 blasted its way straight to the top of the box office charts. This being Sunday afternoon, only estimated results are in thus far, but things break down as shown in the chart below.
Iron Man 2, featuring the armored superhero published by Marvel Comics, did outsell its predecessor even when factoring in the higher ticket prices of today. In 2008, Iron Man opened on May 2 with a weekend take of $98,618,668, which would be worth approximately $109.2 million today. Iron Man 2 beat that by almost $25 million. Not surprising given the goodwill generated by the first film and by star Robert Downey Jr.'s return to Hollywood stardom. Additionally, the news was great overseas as the film, which opened in late April around the world, has already grossed about an additional $200 million from foreign markets.
However...
Iron Man 2 seemed to want to break the all-time records, but it failed to do so. The sequel secured the largest amount of theater space ever for an opening of a movie: 4,380 theaters with a total of almost 10,000 screens, yet it still trailed the opening weekend of 2008's The Dark Knight, a property owned by Marvels' publishing rival DC Comics, by about $25 million.
How will Iron Man 2 hold up in successive weeks? Word of mouth is good, but not more effusive than it was for the first film. Still, given that it sold about 22% more tickets than the original in its first weekend, even if it falls at the same rate, the sequel could still end up with a domestic gross approaching $390 million. This is about the amount that Spider-Man 3's domestic would be worth today.
There were no other big releases this weekend, and with Iron Man 2 dominating theaters, everything else fell noticeably. A Nightmare on Elm Street had the biggest drop in its second weekend, as horror movies often do, off 72% from its open. How to Train Your Dragon has proven to be durable and has grown to over $200 million domestically. Nothing else on the charts is of note beyond the remake of Clash of the Titans, which has performed better internationally than it did within the US and Canada, but still did reasonably well here.
Here are the estimates for Domestic Box office for the weekend of May 7-9, 2010:
|
Title |
Weekend Gross
(US+Canada)
|
change from
last week
|
Total Gross
|
| 1 |
Iron Man 2
(Paramount)
|
$133,600,000 |
debut |
$133,600,000 |
| 2 |
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
(Warner Bros. New Line Cinema)
|
$9,170,000 |
-72.1% |
$48,530,000 |
| 3 |
How to Train Your Dragon
(Dreamworks SKG)
|
$6,760,000 |
-36.3% |
$201,093,000 |
| 4 |
Date Night
(20th Century Fox)
|
$5,300,000 |
-30.1% |
$80,854,000 |
| 5 |
The Back-Up Plan
(CBS Films)
|
$4,345,000 |
-40.1% |
$29,415,000 |
| 6 |
Furry Vengeance
(Summit Entertainment)
|
$4,000,000 |
-39.6% |
$11,621,000 |
| 7 |
Clash of the Titans (2010)
(Warner Bros.)
|
$2,305,000 |
-60.6% |
$157,808,000 |
| 8 |
Death at a Funeral (2010)
(Screen Gems)
|
$2,100,000 |
-49.1% |
$38,323,000 |
| 9 |
The Losers
(Warner Bros.)
|
$1,800,000 |
-69.4% |
$21,450,000 |
| 10 |
Babies
(Focus Features)
|
$1,575,000 |
debut |
$1,575,000 |
| 11 |
Kick-Ass
(Lionsgate Films)
|
$1,510,000 |
-66.6% |
$45,290,000 |
| 12 |
Oceans
(Disney)
|
$1,500,000 |
-41.5% |
$16,000,000 |
|
Movies 
